Kilkenny GAA Thread

Funnily enough, as a Waterford man I usually call him a lot worse during games. There were quite a few people seated around us yesterday calling him a clown yesterday (among other things) which is why the name stuck with me. Cody’s popularity and god like status disappears quite quickly among the Kilkenny fans when an L goes down beside the team name in the paper.

The end result yesterday wasn’t really a surprise, realistically we could easily have been beat by Wexford, and were lucky we didn’t have to meet Galway.

In the first 45 mins, KK were the better team. In that time, we missed ~2-06 from easy enough chances, with approx. another 1-5 from tougher ones.

Had we got those scores, it would have been a different game when Cork came into it, as KK tired and also due to personal changes, in the later 30mins of the game.

We could have moved people around different yesterday and changed the puckout strategy, all of which could have won us the game, but your changing about a few items on an average side to try and win this, when lets be fair, that’s as good as we are, and Cork are better, while still being average to good at the moment. (That will change as the younger players come through).

And yes we found it harder to get frees and yes we were done by the ref at the end, …but we’d only be papering over cracks, we’d have got hammered in the final. But look at that side, its genuinely average to poor, at best, and to be fair, is the weakest Kilkenny team since probably the late 80s, and probably one of the weakest ever.

We will probably never see the likes of the greatest team ever again, and the certainty of winning that came with that team,  but KK teams that went before were always capable of winning the All-Ireland. This team is simply not good enough to win an All-Ireland, and is a good few good players away.

I would put Limerick, Galway, Waterford, Tipp, Cork, Clare ahead of us and Wexford on a par and Dublin behind us. And we get further in the championship as we're in Leinster.

Right now we have dropped from one end of the scale to the other, the side are, average to poor. Wing forwards are the best wing backs we have, relying on players in the mid 30’s to carry this team. Our younger lads are poor (they may be honest, and give their all, but that doesn’t change there ability). Players who beat Limerick in the minor All-Ireland final have dropped away to nothing while that limerick team is hammering everything in front of it at senior.

The players from 28 yrs old to the youngest, are just not near the required levels of talent and drive that’s required for intercounty players. The players coming through are similar, and not having won an U-21 since 2008, and a minor since 2014, is haunting us now. We don’t have the talent and we are not producing it, and worse still, I genuinely don’t think we have the county board who realize the scale of the problem, how underperforming the underage development squad setup is or how poor the management at underage is, to be able to deliver what’s needed in the modern game.

We are at least a decade behind where we need to be, and have yet to admit we have a problem. A number of people who are criticized as ‘naysayers’ have been saying on here for years that this crash is here and getting worse, but falling on deaf ears and replied too with scorn.

But just look where we are, and about to fall off another cliff, when TJ, Walter, Hogan. Buckley leaves.

To put it simply, we are nowhere near good enough, our players coming through are nowhere near good enough, and its not looking like we will be anytime soon either, based on how our underage compare to other counties. Go to the game or ask anyone which counties are streets ahead of everyone else at development squad and underage levels and you’ll hear – Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Tipp, and most likely in that order.

And Cork in hurling, is going to be like Dublin are in the football, once they have a development system working well, they will have huge conveyor belt of talent based simply on the numbers in that county, that we will never compete with, unless we get it working now.

In relation to Cody, yes he has his limitations, but he has proven over the years if you give him talent he will make it deliver. He currently has, with some exceptions, average and poor players, who he is getting the most out of, to be fair to him.

Everyone has limitations, and his are probably in the area of making subtle changes during the game to sneak/rob a game, or pull it out of the fire, but that is where we are with this team.

Should he go, I think he should. He’s given everything to hurling and to Kilkenny hurling and has changed the way the game is played, and the honesty to which players are picked and continued to be picked.

It is he, who has the changed the way hurlers are viewed in an intercounty system. Nobody is a star, nobody is beyond being dropped, which has seeped across the GAA world and is emulated by most managers now. He changed the expectation of KK players, from being hungry for the win, to hunger being an expectation from his teams everyday they go out.

That is Cody’s doing, and solely him.

He doesn’t have the players, and I do think he is getting the max out of them. But I don’t think people will realize that until he is gone. Someone might come along a cajole and out tactic a team to win an all-ireland, but we have dropped a long way if we are relying on that, rather than tactics alongside having Quality Players.

Decent post but i do have to have to argue with one of your points that Cody is getting the most out of his players.

This cant be right as more often than not we haven't afforded our scoring forwards the advantage of pinging a low ball out wide in front of them to take a relatively easy score. The question to ask yourself is this. Would you rate corks full forward line better than ours yesterday? I would reckon given the right advantageous ball in front of them they would be every bit as clinical as most full forward lines in the country but we don't consistently do this and that's part of our game play. If we have long puck outs then we have to be able to contest these but generally its would be 60/40 in favour of the defender. Our link up play between our half backs and half/full forward lines is crucial here and the bottom line is we just don't do it nearly enough. This comes down to what we do in training and how we are coached. I watched Eoin Murphy yesterday waving away to our corner backs, letting them know it wasnt going short. There are times to land it long but not when we are being bulldozed every time. Its heartbreaking to continually watch it. Give the inside lads a chance for gods sake and let them sink or swim. Im sure we will be swimming far more if we give it right to them and you will see then how the likes of limerick get big scores every match.

Saw that .imagine it was GPS tracking device seemed to move it beside each group for a minute or so

Again a good post but when you say we probably couldn't have beaten Cork yesterday I have to disagree. Did Cork deserve to win? Absolutely. Did we do our best to try to beat them? Not by a long shot. This doesn't mean we lacked effort. On the contrary we never lack effort and as you say this has all the hallmarks of Cody. Fair play to him on this and the way he will always go down as the best inter county hurling manager of all time. No question about that. The issue I have is that the likes of Billy Ryan, Eoin Cody, Alan Murphy, James bergin and Richie hogan would much prefer to get a low fast ball outside their radius (as we all know a backs nightmare) and create a score rather than try to contest a high ball ( a backs dream as he has the impetus and positiining) or wait for a possible break to get the score. We didn't play to our strengths in the 2nd half or extra time and we paid the price. Simple as that.

Looking at positives for the year.

Eoin Cody had a solid year building on last year, needs to be a bit more clinical in going for goals or else taking a point

Billy Ryan had his best game yet. At one stage his marker was standing off him as he was afraid of his pace, practically guaranteeing him a handy point if good ball was delivered in to him

Adrian Mullen had his best match since returning from injury, also worked hard for the team.

James Bergin is an option off the bench which I didn't think he would be at the start of the year

Michael Carey has promise.

Tommy Walsh is improving

Darragh Corcoran has potential

I thought Huw Lawlor had a solid year.

Richie Reid had some decent outings, needs to be more accurate.

Darren Mullen in midfield next year.

Although we reverted to type after the first quarter, there are definite signs that we can play more intelligently and create opportunities at times

What? Not a word for James Maher? His form was the biggest positive for me this year.

Fair enough. With the way the modern game is evolving, you need scores from your half backs and James definitely contributed. Dissapointments for me this year were John Donnelly and Richie Leahy. John is good enough to come back, Richie has had injury problems but seems to run into trouble in congested midfields

I think we can choose better than Cahill but it was the effect he had where he raised a team which would have been considered the lowest team in the championship to the second team last year and 3-4 this year. That's fair going in fairness to him like his style or not.

And Kilkenny got their arses handed to them by that Waterford team😉

I think Cahill has done an excellent job with Waterford. I think both he and McGrath brought numbers back and developed a running game mainly because of a lack of good defenders. Fanning tried a more orthodox style, look at the results under him and tell me they're not better off under Cahill.I would rate the Cahill /Bevans combination very,very highly and way above Kilkenny's set up. I would think KK would improve a lot under him and tactically we would improve hugely, which is what we need imo.

Who would you choose in the ideal world?

Andy Gaffney for the Boro, would expect him to have a big year if he can stay fit.

I would definitely think Henry see's us of being able to win an All Ireland in the next 7-8 years if there is change at the top. I would say that any of the theoretical managerial candidates would feel there's more in this group than we're getting out of them.

On a separate topic, since when were Kilkenny people ever worried about facing any county in an All Ireland final? Why are people saying their happy we were bet as we're better off not playing Limerick in a final? We used to be happy to go in as underdogs and back our ability to cause a dominant team trouble and get over the line. I'm talking pre Cody days here too. Kilkenny people would have always been confident/hopeful in our ability to get past any team. Why has that changed? I think I know the answer but I'd be interested in peoples thoughts. There're a lot of things I would consider to be very unKilkenny like happening and being said in the last few years.

Anyway this is all pie in the sky stuff until he goes which as I've said before is very unlikely anytime soon.

Yeah definitely is strong enough for wing back but it's not an area the Boro need cover in so he was sent up to bolster the forwards. It was a great call by our last management team and he's definitely better going forward, while good at the back he tended to get caught for silly fouls. He has a big stride and when he gets going he is rarely caught. He has a good eye for goal too.